Mr. de president, slaap zacht!

[Barst]

RITTER RIGHT ABOUT IRAQ

President Bush has been handing out Presidential Medals of Freedom lately like they were Little League good sportsmanship ribbons.

The medal apparently is an award for good effort, even if the results aren't so winning.

He awarded one to former Iraq viceroy Paul Bremer, who most notably disbanded the Iraqi army, leading to our present security implosion.

And he gave one to George Tenet, the former CIA chief, who most notably presided over two of the most devastating intelligence failures in the nation's history: first Sept. 11, then Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

It was Tenet who told the president that finding weapons stockpiles in Iraq was a "slam dunk."

Right. Give that man a medal.

I'd like to nominate someone who really deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom: Scott Ritter.

Remember Ritter? In a column in 2002, I wrote about the square-jawed former U.S. Marine and United Nations weapons inspector, who was in Wichita several months before the invasion of Iraq, giving a talk -- no, a plea -- about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He was adamant: Saddam Hussein had no WMDs -- at least none of any consequence or that posed an imminent danger to the United States. Certainly nothing that would warrant a rushed invasion. "We can't go to war based on rhetoric and speculation," he told the crowd. "We'd better make sure there is a threat out there worth fighting."

He argued that 90 percent to 95 percent of Saddam's WMDs had been dismantled by the U.N. inspection team in which he served from 1991 to 1998. And that Saddam was otherwise well-contained by U.S. forces.

Now we know: He was right.

You've probably heard that the Bush administration this week quietly called off the weapons search.

There aren't any WMD stockpiles. As in none. Zip. And, no, they weren't moved to Syria.

The weapons didn't exist.

True to form, Bush insisted this week that it didn't matter -- that's right, his main justification for taking this country into a bloody, costly war didn't matter. He would still have invaded Iraq!

Huh? That makes sense only if he had planned to invade Iraq all along, as critics charged.

I remember Ritter telling the largely anti-war audience at the Wichita church that he wasn't a pacifist. A proud U.S. Marine, he believed that it was sometimes necessary to go to war and fight. But he also believed that it was wrong to put American fighting men and women in harm's way without very good reason.

Ritter saw that his country was headed down a disastrous path and had the guts to speak out.

At the time, he took a lot of abuse from Bush loyalists. They questioned his motives, and his integrity. They compared him to Jane Fonda. They asked in mocking tones what exercise video he was making next.

He could be saying, "I told you so." Instead, he's speaking out on another security boondoggle -- the anti-missile defense shield program, which is costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars without the Pentagon even being able to prove that it works.

We're spending the national treasure on it, with nothing in the way of enhanced security to show for it. On the contrary, argues Ritter, it's unleashing a dangerous and pointless new arms race.

Will we listen to him now? Probably not.

But make no mistake: Scott Ritter is an American patriot who cares enough about his country to tell it the unvarnished truth.

Give that man a medal. He actually deserves it.


The Wichita Eagle, 14-01-2005

[Barst]

Antieke site Babylon zwaar beschadigd door coalitietroepen


LONDEN - Amerikaanse en Poolse troepen hebben de ruïnes van de antieke stad Babylon in Irak zwaar beschadigd. Dat staat in een verslag van het Londense British Museum.


De ravage aan de meer dan 2000 jaar oude stad is groot. Zo hebben de zware wielen van legervoertuigen de straten letterlijk verbrijzeld, kwamen archeologische resten terecht in zandzakken en op werd verschillende plaatsen gravel gestort voor de aanleg van parkeer-en landingsplaatsen. In de omgewoelde aarde vonden de archeologen stukjes aardewerk, maar ook een nog complete vaas, beenderen en fragmenten van bakstenen met inscripties in spijkerschrift

Het rapport heeft het verder ook nog over beschadigingen aan de Ishtar-poort. De onderzoekers vermoeden dat soldaten de geglazuurde tegels hebben willen loswrikken.

Archeoloog John Curtis, conservator van de afdeling Nabije Oosten van het British Museum: ,,Het is alsof er een militair kamp zou worden opgericht rond de Grote Pyramiden in Egypte of rond Stonehenge in Groot-Brittannië''. Hij wijst erop dat Alexander de Grote in Babylon begraven werd en dat de stad als een van de zeven wonderen van de antieke wereld werd beschouwd wegens haar ’hangende tuinen’.

Het legerkamp rond de oude stad werd in april 2003 door de Amerikanen opgezet en in september van hetzelfde jaar overgedragen aan de Polen. Er verbleven tot tweeduizend soldaten.


DS, 16/01/2005 - afp

[Barst]

4 miljard dollar tekort om VS-soldaten in Irak te voeden en wassen


De kosten voor de niet strikt militaire logistiek voor de Amerikaanse troepen in Irak zullen vier miljard dollar méér bedragen dan gedacht in de begroting 2005 van het Pentagon, zo heeft de zakenkrant Wall Street Journal (WSJ) bericht onder aanhaling van cijfers van de groep Halliburton.

Volgens de WSJ heeft de Halliburton-dochter KBR (Kellog Brown and Root), die instaat voor het levensonderhoud van de 150.000 VS-militairen in Irak, in december het Pentagon een bestek van tien miljard dollar bezorgd voor de dienstverlening vanaf 1 mei. Maar het Amerikaanse ministerie van defensie had voor die diensten slechts 3,6 miljard dollar begroot. Dankzij besparingen elders kon het Amerikaanse leger een deel van de ontbrekende som wegwerken. Toch bleef er een gat van vier miljard dollar, aldus generaal George Casey tegenover de WSJ.

"Zeggen dat we niet bezorgd zijn, zou de waarheid geweld aan doen", zo citeert de krant de generaal. Voor de oorlog in maart 2003 uitbrak in Irak, had Washington gedacht dat die ongeveer zestig miljard dollar zou kosten. Maar de kost is ondertussen verdrievoudigd en blijft oplopen, aldus de WSJ.

In het laatste trimester van 2004 kreeg het VS-leger van KBR een factuur van 18 miljoen dollar per dag voor de niet-militaire logistiek voor de soldaten in Irak. Het betreft onder meer logement, voedsel, hygiëne enz. (LVK/MAE, belga)

HLN, 01/02/05 16u55

[pastas]

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/01467.htm

[Barst]

20 amazing facts about voting in the USA

http://www.newmatilda.com/home/artic...?ArticleID=471


Did you know...

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad.
See the film by Votergate here: http://www.votergate.tv/

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All - not some - but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favour of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida - again always favouring Bush have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

[Barst]

Scum Also Rises: The Bloody Career of John Negroponte

By DAVE LINDORFF

The nomination by President George Bush of John Negroponte for the new post of director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing all the burgeoning intelligence operations of the United States, is both obscene and predictable.

Negroponte, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and, unofficially, the head of the U.S. occupation of that country, is a career foreign service officer on paper, but in fact a veteran CIA operative responsible for some of the blackest crimes of murder and torture in Central America during that region's dark days of civil war, revolution and counter-revolution in the late 20th Century.

As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, Negroponte played a key role in organizing the military repression in that poorest of Latin American countries, and in creating and running the so-called Contra's, the U.S-organized military operation to undermine and overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

What makes Negroponte the perfect candidate to be America's KGB chief is his refined cover. He has the Republicans on the Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee in his pocket anyhow, and as a career diplomat, urbane and fluent in five languages, he also appeals to the mushy national security state Democrats like John Rockefeller (D-W. VA), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who will be asked to join in rubber-stamping his nomination.

If his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during hearings on his nomination for the post of ambassador to Iraq is any indication, he will breeze through this next "test." Democratic Senators Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) gushed over him at those earlier hearings, and didn't ask anything about his role in promoting death squad activities or in covering up human rights abuses in Central America, which included the murders of several dozen priests and nuns.

Americans concerned about our vanishing civil liberties, and about the expanded use of official state terrorism against American citizens and resident aliens should be concerned about this appointment, however. The new intelligence chief will be responsible for overseeing the nation's vast $100-billion spying operation and its ballooning, largely secret budget.


This man's record is not encouraging.

Negroponte deliberately falsified State Department human rights reports every year of his ambassadorship in Honduras. According to the Maryknoll Order, many U.S. missionaries and other religious activists were murdered in that country in the 1970s and especially the early 1980s by CIA-trained Honduran soldiers of the so-called Battalion 3-16, whose operations they claim Negroponte oversaw, or "at best overlooked."

Even The New York Times credits Negroponte with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua"-an effort which the paper fails to note was illegal, and which ultimately included the trading of guns for drugs on CIA-financed aircraft. Negroponte helped with this massively corrupt and illegal war effort of the Reagan administration even after it had been expressly banned by the U.S. Congress.

One would think that kind of insult to the Congress would elicit at least some opposition to Negroponte's appointment, but not a word about it came up during his ambassadorship hearings (Sen. Dodd actually said, "I happen to feel he's a very fine Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many places."), and it seems unlikely he'll be asked about it this time around.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

Counterpunch, 18-02-2005

[Barst]

En nu ook nog twee rasechte havik-unilateralisten als U.S.-vertegenwoordiger binnen multilaterale organisaties: John Bolton als V.N.-ambassadeur en Paul Wolfowitz als chairman van de Wereldbank... Dat belooft!

Zoals al gezegd na het bezoek aan Europa: 'Actions speak louder than words' - Q.E.D.!

Gelukkig slapen ze daar nog niet allemaal, zie onderstaand artikel...


Congres tegen uitbesteden folteringen

Van onze redacteur


BRUSSEL - Het Amerikaanse Congres eist dat de VS geen martelpraktijken meer uitbesteden aan andere landen. President George Bush repliceert dat als de VS mensen repatriëren, ze telkens de belofte krijgen dat die niet worden gemarteld. Die beloften zijn een lachertje, zegt een anonieme CIA-agent.


Het nieuws lekte begin maart uit: de Amerikaanse geheime dienst CIA laat vermeende terroristen voor ondervraging opsluiten in landen die folteren. Er is sprake van 100 tot 150 personen sinds de aanslagen van 11 september 2001. De Verenigde Staten gebruikten die praktijk al voor die fatale dag, maar veel minder en ze controleerden de hele zaak veel nauwgezetter.

Het Amerikaanse Huis van Afgevaardigden stemde woensdag in met de besteding van 60,87 miljard euro voor dringende uitgaven die de oorlog en heropbouw in Afghanistan en Irak met zich meebrengen. De gekozenen verboden in één adem, met 420 stemmen tegen 2, dat de overheid geld zou gebruiken om verdachten over te vliegen naar landen die folteren.

President Bush kon het vraagstuk door de houding van het Amerikaanse parlement niet langer uit de weg gaan: ,,In de wereld na 9/11 moeten de Verenigde Staten hun bevolking en hun vrienden tegen aanvallen verdedigen. Een manier om dat te doen, is mensen te arresteren en ze terug te sturen naar hun land van oorsprong, mits de belofte dat ze niet zullen worden gefolterd. We krijgen die belofte. Deze staat gelooft niet in martelen. We geloven in zelfverdediging.''

Die beloften zijn een lachertje, zei een CIA-agent die bij de operaties betrokken is, aan de krant The Washington Post. ,,Het gaat om veel meer dan dat'', vertelden regeringsambtenaren die gevangenissen in het buitenland bezochten waar de CIA verdachten dropte. ,,Het is heel duidelijk dat ze daar ondervragingstechnieken toepassen die in de Verenigde Staten verboden zijn.''

De geheime dienst evalueert het systeem en leden van het Amerikaanse Congres vragen een diepgaand onderzoek. Canada, Zweden, Duitsland en Italië zijn al aan het onderzoeken in welke mate hun geheime diensten deelnemen aan die CIA-activiteiten.

Maher Arar, een Canadees van Syrische oorsprong, was het slachtoffer van die praktijken. De Amerikanen namen hem op de luchthaven JFK van New York gevangen en zetten hem op het vliegtuig naar Syrië. Hij vloog er een jaar in de cel waar hij werd geslagen. Mamdouh Habib, een Australiër van Egyptische oorsprong, zegt te hebben vastgezeten in Pakistan, Egypte, Afghanistan en Guantánamo Bay op Cuba. De Verenigde Staten lieten hem in januari gaan.


18/03/2005 Boudewijn Vanpeteghem

©Copyright De Standaard